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OCTOBER, 1967
into right knowledge, and is followed by an intense desire for the realisation of the Ideal. This is devotion of love, and leads to the worship of the Tirthankara. Finally, when conduct is purified and becomes perfect under the combined influence of knowledge and love, the binding force of karmas is destroyed and the soul is set free to enjoy its natural omniscience and bliss.
The chief obstacle on the path of yoga, which beginners have to get over, lies in the mechanism of habit which the easy-going will like to adhere to. It is not to be supposed that the actual, practical science of yoga is characterised by anything resembling the ease with which we have been discussing it here. We know, from practical experience, how hard it is to break through any deep-rooted habit. Yoga has to get over not one or two of such habits alone, but over all those traits and tendencies and inclinations which lead in the wrong direction; and their number is legion. Hence, yoga accepts only those disciples, in the first instance, in whom zeal and earnestness have been emancipated from the thraldom of habit, or slothfulness by viveka (discrimination), vairagya (non-attachment), tyāga (renunciation), and faith. From being accepted as a disciple to the full realisation of the Self, that is, the attainment of bliss, eight steps are pointed out by Patanjali, the venerable codifier of this science; and they are: yama, niyama, asana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyana and samadhi.
To sum up, the real yoga for man is to know and realise his own divine nature, and to establish himself in the beatific state of blessedness and bliss, by subduing and mortifying the little, self-deluded, bodily self. The process of realisation is threefold, and consists in Right Insight or Faith, Right Knowledge and Right Conduct, that is to say, in singeing the wings of sin,, i.e., ignorance, by the fire of wisdom in destroying the delusion of duality by faith in the Godhood of the Self, and in radiating peace and goodwill and joy to all beings in the universe, in short, in settling down to the enjoyment of one's true Self, here and now. Let the world call it idleness, if it likes; what does it matter to the soul? Neither Mahavira, nor Parsva nor any other Saviour of the race kept shop, or sold merchandise. Yet whoever dared consider them idle? What is the value of the opinion of the worldly mortals to him who depends not on the opinion of others for his happiness, but who knows and feels the Self to be the very fountain-head of bliss itself?
"I tell you what is man's supreme vocation. Before me was no world, 'tis my creation. 'Twas I who raised the Sun from out the sea, The moon began her changeful course with me.'"
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